Over at National Review, Jonah Goldberg, normally just plain wrong, has got it (mostly) right on Todd "if you're pregnant, it wasn't rape" Akin. According to Mr. Goldberg (link):
... what relevance does it have to the question of abortion? Akin brings it up to somehow assure people that pregnancy-from-rape is (allegedly) rare. Okay let’s say it is. So what? How would it change the calculus differently if it were common? You still have to decide how society will deal with cases of pregnancy-from-rape. I just don’t get the point he was trying to make in the first place. (emphasis added)
Mostly right but wrong in a critical area.
Mr. Goldberg here is being deliberately ignorant when he says he doesn't get the point Akin was trying to make. Actually, it's quite simple:
1. The GOP wants (or claims to want) to ban all abortions, maybe with an exception for rape cases.
2. Should this new regime come to be the law, Akin and other Republicans think women will lie and say they were raped to get an an abortion.
3. (Mythology alert!) But "legitimate rape" does not result in pregnancy.
4. Hence, should the GOP come to power, they would allow, if possible, no more abortions in rape cases -- because by definition, there was no "legitimate rape".
Mr. Goldberg is desperate to isolate Akin as a Christine "I am not a witch" O'Donnell /Jim "Beam me up, Scotty" Traficant type of lone lunatic. Hence, in his column, Mr. Goldberg acknowledges that Akin's remarks are "fair game" but claims as "nonsense" this TPM post describing D efforts to link Akin to the GOP.
The problem with that is well shown in this Think Progress article from yesterday, which shows that Paul Ryan (remember him?), and Todd Akin pulled a similar stunt when they tried to redefine "rape" into "forcible rape" to determine whether federal funds could be used to pay for an abortion.
Mr. Goldberg no doubt sincerely wishes that the Ds will not "play politics" with Akin's remarks. But he's surely not so naive as to think that the Ds will ignore this golden opportunity. They aren't going to let Lucy snatch the football away this time.